Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns it all, baby! And one line is from
Boy Meets World. Hee.
Author’s Note: I think this may be the weirdest non-plot I’ve
come up with yet. If you’ll believe it, it came to me in a dream. ;) Thanks
to my beta reader, Elanor Gamgee, as usual.
*********************
“Please, Ron?” Ginny was starting to lose her patience with her
brother. The Weasleys weren’t famous for their patience.
Ron continued to ignore her, instead choosing to announce to no one in
particular, “Hinkypunks, I think, should work.” He jotted it down on the
parchment in front of him. He was, as usual, making up his Divination
work.
Ginny collapsed into the chair across from him, sighing with annoyance
and tapping her foot extra loudly on the ground in an attempt to return
his attention to her. Finally, he looked up, equally annoyed.
“All right then, if you insist on making me repeat myself again,
I will: are you completely mad? Oh, and NO.”
Ginny tugged on the ends of her hair; a nervous habit. I can’t believe
he won’t even consider it! She wondered why she didn’t just ask Hermione
- after all, Hermione would understand, and at the very least, be a bit
more sympathetic. But instead, Ginny seemed to be more interested in self-torture
than she had ever thought.
“Look, Ginny? Why don’t you ask Hermione? Or if you’re desperate, Fred
or George,” he added with a snicker. Ginny snorted in response.
“But Ron—”
“Ginny! I am trying to study!” Even Ron couldn’t keep a straight face
at that. “Why don’t you just talk to him yourself? It’s not as
though you’re still fumbling all over him…” Satisfied, he turned back
to his assignment. “Or better yet, just ignore it. That crush seems to
be getting smaller every day.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. “Ron…” she said warningly. Her ‘crush’
on Harry was gone, but no one else seemed to realize that. Except perhaps
Hermione. She had long since gotten over her hero-worship, but somewhere
down the line, it had turned into so much more.
“Maybe I don’t really want to go up to my best friend and tell
him it’d be a joy if he went and snogged my sister!”
“Would you rather I go and snog Draco Malfoy?” Ginny couldn’t suppress
a giggle at the look this received.
Suddenly, Ginny got an idea. Truth be told, it was a completely and totally
absurd idea, but, possibly due to the long and stress-inducing time she
had just spent with Ron, Ginny did not care. In fact, the more she thought
about it, the more it made sense to her. Hmm. Perhaps I should
think about going to the hospital wing…
Ron scribbled something on his parchment and proclaimed a job done.
He threw it, and his books, in his bag. Then he pulled his chess set out.
“Want to play a game?” he asked Ginny, moving over to a table in front
of the fire.
“No, thanks. Ron, I think you should go to Harry, chat him up,” Ginny
said very fast, and very casually. Ron, in turn, whirled around to stare
at her. Of course, since he had been in the midst of sitting when he did
this, he ended up tripping over his long legs and crashing to the floor.
Somehow, Ginny maintained a composed front through this, and merely blinked
at him.
After Ron found his voice again, he stuttered, “So. I see that I was
wrong before, about your being completely mad. Apparently there is
more room for that. Are you feeling okay?” Amazingly, he sounded generally
concerned.
“Yes, yes, I’m great. It’s my new plan.” Ron began to look slightly ill,
so she hurried on, “Don’t worry, it’ll work out.”
Some time later, because both Ginny and the author wish to keep this
plan secret…
“..So, the key is to be obvious and vague, yet at the same time direct
and subtle…” she trailed off, looking at Ron’s constant head shaking.
“What?” Ginny winced at how much that had sounded like a whine.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do??” A blush began
to creep across his face, matching his ears, which had been red throughout
the entire conversation.
Ginny, for her part, smiled winningly. “A favour?”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but there is no way I am doing… that,”
he ended with a groan, burying his head in his hands.
“What if I told you to do the same with Hermione?” she asked slyly. Ron
groaned again.
* * * * * * * *
Ron trudged up the stairs to the boy’s dormitories. Very slowly. Mentally
kicking himself with each step. Why? Why, why, why did
I agree to do this? Much too quickly, he reached the fifth years’
door. Drawing up whatever courage that had landed him in Gryffindor, he
opened the door and walked in. A quick glance told him Harry was on his
bed, flipping through his beat-up copy of Quidditch Through The Ages.
Harry looked up, greeted Ron, and turned back to the book.
All right, Ron, all you need to do is tell him about Ginny. As long
as it gets the same result, she need never know. Simple. Decided,
Ron opened his mouth, fully prepared not to follow his sister’s
stupid plan, but what he said, to his horror, was, “You have very nice
eyes, did you know that?”
“Thanks,” Harry answered automatically. After a pause, he looked up.
“Wait… what?”
Ron was dimly aware that he must be bright red by this time. His brain
was screaming at his vocal chords. Why the hell did you say that?!
What he said this time was slightly better. “Er – nothing.”
Harry looked skeptical, but nodded. “Take a look at this…” he said, pointing
to a page. After a moment’s pause, he looked up again. Ron hadn’t moved
an inch. “I imagine it’s difficult to see the print from over there.”
He sounded half amused, and after a very nervous bark of laughter, Ron
walked woodenly over to the bed and forced himself to sit slightly closer
to Harry than he normally would.
Now what? he asked himself, Harry’s voice a dull noise in the
back of his mind. He raised a hand, stopped, raised it again, and stopped
yet again.
“That’s it! I can’t do it!”
Harry stopped reading aloud and stared at Ron, a concerned look on his
face.
“Ron, are you okay?”
Ron jumped up and began to pace the room. Muttering to himself, arguing
on about what he should do; he didn’t notice that Harry was looking more
and more worried, and had gotten up to join Ron, touching his shoulder.
Ron yelped, jumping as though he had been burned.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Do you know – do you know what that utterly barking sister of
mine wanted me to do??”
* * * * * * *
Ginny wrung her hands nervously, debating whether she should go and hide
in her dorm or stay where she was, eyes glued to the boy’s staircase.
“Hullo, Ginny!”
Startled, Ginny jerked her head around to see Neville coming across the
common room to join her. She greeted him with a distracted smile as he
took a seat next to her, stretching and cracking his back as he did so.
He began to tell Ginny about a new plant, or Chocolate Frogs - she wasn’t
quite sure, to be honest. She couldn’t seem to stop casting glances over
to the staircase. Just then, Ron appeared, practically running down the
steps.
Interrupting Neville in the middle of a description of something green
and scaly, Ginny said rather eagerly, “Ron! What ha—where are you—”
Shooting his sister a fierce glare, Ron strode past them, pushed open
the portrait, and left without a word.
Ginny began to wonder if perhaps she had made a mistake in dragging her
brother into this. The more she thought about it, the further she dove
into the realms of paranoia. Soon, she had herself convinced that Harry
actually liked Ron in that way, thus proving that she was nothing but
a stupid little girl who hadn’t lost her pathetic crush after all.
“Are… are you all right?” Neville asked in a kind but nervous voice.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m fine.” Neville looked relieved at her answer, and
Ginny smiled. She started pulling at a thread on the arm of the couch
in an attempt to divert her concentration from her inner monologue.
“Hi Neville. Hi Ginny.”
Ginny glanced up, and without delay, turned a bright red. Harry…
Her newfound paranoia reached new heights. In the distance, she was conscious
of Harry and Neville carrying on an amusing conversation, and the also
new self-pitying part of her wondered why he hadn’t yet left to find Ron.
That part of her also cursed her blushing. So much for being past the
bumbling, fumbling stage…
Coming out of her thoughts, she realized that Neville was disappearing
up the staircase, and Harry Was Still There. He smiled at her, and sat
in the chair across from her, exactly as she had earlier with Ron. Harry
reached under a table and pulled out a chess set.
“Want to play?”
Now more than ever, Ginny wondered what had happened upstairs. This was
the first time in four years Harry had ever voluntarily spent time with
her alone, none of her brothers or Hermione in sight. Ginny may have been
slightly suspicious, but she wasn’t mad. She nodded happily, sitting
up and taking the chess pieces Harry held out to her.
As they began to play, one of Harry’s pawns laughing at him over his
first choice of move, it occurred to Ginny that her plan hadn’t quite
worked out the way she had wanted it to. But, she thought, as Harry
rolled his eyes, smiling at her once more, it’s a very good start.
